What is MapLibre?
MapLibre is free, open-source software for putting interactive maps in websites and apps. It draws the map; you choose where the map data comes from.
Free and open source
MapLibre's map libraries are free to use, change, and ship, under permissive licenses (BSD-3-Clause for the web, BSD-2-Clause for apps). No license fee and no account.
Your choice of map data
The map's streets, labels, and terrain come from a basemap: a free one, a commercial provider, or your own files. You can switch without rewriting your map.
Run by its community
The MapLibre Organization runs the projects in the open, with an elected board and sponsors that include companies listed here. It is used in 156 products in this directory.
The projects
MapLibre is a family of open-source projects that share one map format, so a map looks the same on the web and in apps.
MapLibre GL JS
Shows fast, interactive maps on websites and in web views, drawn by the device's graphics chip from vector tiles.
web · BSD-3-Clause
MapLibre Native
Shows the same kind of maps inside mobile and desktop apps.
iOS, Android, desktop (Linux, Windows, macOS), plus Node.js and Qt · BSD-2-Clause
MapLibre Style Specification ↗
The shared format that describes how a map looks (colors, fonts, which data to draw), read by both MapLibre GL JS and MapLibre Native.
shared by web and native
Martin
A tile server that makes map tiles on the fly from PostgreSQL/PostGIS databases and GeoJSON files, and serves tiles from PMTiles and MBTiles files.
server · MIT OR Apache-2.0
Maputnik
A free visual editor for designing map styles, usable online in the browser.
web · MIT
MapLibre Tile (MLT)
A newer vector tile format, designed for smaller files and faster decoding; the specification has been stable since October 2025.
file format · MIT OR Apache-2.0
MapLibre React Native
Adds MapLibre Native maps to React Native and Expo apps.
iOS, Android · MIT
Flutter MapLibre GL
Adds MapLibre maps to Flutter apps.
Android, iOS, web · BSD-3-Clause
MapLibre Compose
Adds MapLibre maps to Compose Multiplatform apps.
Android, iOS, desktop, web · BSD-3-Clause
What a map costs
The library is free. What you may pay for is the map data and where it is served from, and there are free options for both.
- the library
- Free and open source. MapLibre GL JS is BSD-3-Clause and MapLibre Native is BSD-2-Clause: no license fee and no account.
- basemap tiles
- Free hosted basemaps exist: OpenFreeMap and VersaTiles need no API key and charge no usage fees, and OpenFreeMap also needs no registration and sets no limit on map views or requests. Commercial providers such as MapTiler, Stadia Maps and Jawg offer free tiers with monthly limits for testing or non-commercial use, and paid plans for commercial use.
- hosting your own tiles
- You can host the map data yourself. Protomaps publishes a whole-world basemap from OpenStreetMap as a single PMTiles file of roughly 120 GB (or cut out just your region; OpenStreetMap attribution required), which can sit on ordinary cloud storage such as S3 and be read by MapLibre GL JS directly, with no tile server; Protomaps describes this as enabling low-cost, zero-maintenance map applications. For data in a database, MapLibre's Martin tile server can serve tiles from PostGIS, PMTiles or MBTiles.
Pick a basemap on Basemaps, or make your own with the tiling tools.
How it compares
Mapbox GL JS and the Google Maps JavaScript API are established, well-documented ways to put a map on a website, and MapLibre GL JS began as a fork of Mapbox GL JS. The main differences are the license and who provides the map data.
| MapLibre GL JS | Mapbox GL JS | Google Maps JavaScript API | |
|---|---|---|---|
| License of the library | BSD-3-Clause, open source | Proprietary Mapbox license since v2.0.0 (December 2020): developers with an active Mapbox account may use and modify it, only with Mapbox products and under the Mapbox Terms of Service. The source code is public on GitHub. Versions up to v1.13 were BSD-3-Clause. | Proprietary. Google grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use it under the Google Maps Platform Terms of Service, which do not allow copying or modifying the code. |
| Account or key needed to show a map | No. The library needs no account or key. Some tile providers ask for a key; others, such as OpenFreeMap, VersaTiles and MapLibre's demo tiles, do not. | Yes: a Mapbox account and an access token, which associates the map with the account. | Yes: an API key. Production use needs a Google Cloud project with billing enabled; a no-cost Maps Demo Key allows prototyping without billing details. |
| Where map data comes from | Any provider you choose, or your own tiles | Mapbox's map styles and tile services, including your own data uploaded to Mapbox as tilesets | Google's map data and imagery, with your own data (for example GeoJSON) drawn on top |
| Self-hosting the map data | Yes: from your own tile server (for example Martin) or a single PMTiles file on static storage. | Mapbox hosts the tiles, including tilesets you create. For private cloud or on-premises use, Mapbox offers Mapbox Atlas, a downloadable set of Mapbox services, through its sales team. | No. Google serves the map data, and its terms do not allow storing or rehosting Google Maps content outside Google's services, except for caching the Maps Service Specific Terms expressly permit. |
| Pricing model | Free library; you pay whichever tile provider you choose, if any | Pay as you go, billed per map load (each time Mapbox GL JS initializes on a web page or in a web app). Up to 50,000 map loads a month are free, with volume-based rates above that; billing by monthly active users (Map Seats) is also offered. | Pay as you go, billed per map load (the Dynamic Maps SKU). Up to 10,000 map loads a month are free, with volume discounts above that; fixed monthly subscription plans are also offered. |
| Platforms | Web browsers. MapLibre Native covers iOS, Android and desktop apps. | Web browsers. The Mapbox Maps SDKs cover iOS and Android apps. | Web browsers. The Maps SDKs for Android and iOS cover mobile apps. |
From each project's own license, terms, pricing, and docs, checked September 2026. Terms and pricing change, so check the providers' pages before you decide.
Already using Mapbox GL JS? Coming from Mapbox shows what changes in your code and what to use for each Mapbox service.
Where it came from
MapLibre began in December 2020, when the community forked the last open-source versions of Mapbox GL JS and Mapbox GL Native, the map libraries Mapbox created. Today the web library alone is downloaded about 6 million times a week.
Who runs it
The MapLibre Organization runs it in the open. An elected board of five, with at most one member from any one company, sets the direction, and anyone can join the monthly technical meetings. Every expense is public on Open Collective. Sponsors such as Amazon (AWS), Microsoft, MapTiler and Komoot, along with individual donors, pay for its maintainers.
Ready to make a map?
See what others made with MapLibre, or pick your platform and have a map on screen in a few lines.
Sources (checked September 2026)
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-js/blob/main/README.md
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-native/blob/main/FORK.md
- https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/releases/tag/v2.0.0
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre/blob/main/CHARTER.md
- https://maplibre.org/about/
- https://opencollective.com/maplibre
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-js/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-native/blob/main/LICENSE.md
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-style-spec/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
- https://github.com/maplibre/martin/blob/main/LICENSE-MIT
- https://github.com/maplibre/maputnik/blob/main/LICENSE
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-tile-spec/blob/main/LICENSE-MIT
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-react-native/blob/main/LICENSE.md
- https://github.com/maplibre/flutter-maplibre-gl/blob/main/maplibre_gl/LICENSE
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-compose/blob/main/LICENSE
- https://maplibre.org/sponsors/
- https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-week/maplibre-gl
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/maplibre-gl
- https://openfreemap.org/
- https://versatiles.org/
- https://www.maptiler.com/cloud/pricing/
- https://stadiamaps.com/pricing/
- https://www.jawg.io/en/pricing/
- https://docs.protomaps.com/basemaps/downloads
- https://docs.protomaps.com/pmtiles/
- https://docs.protomaps.com/pmtiles/cloud-storage
- https://maplibre.org/maplibre-gl-js/docs/examples/pmtiles-source-and-protocol/
- https://github.com/maplibre/martin
- https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
- https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
- https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms
- https://github.com/maplibre/demotiles
- https://docs.mapbox.com/help/dive-deeper/access-tokens/
- https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/guides/
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/demo-key
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/usage-and-billing
- https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-tiling-service/guides/
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/overview
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/datalayer
- https://www.mapbox.com/atlas
- https://www.mapbox.com/pricing
- https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/guides/pricing/
- https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing
- https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/overview
- https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-native/blob/main/README.md
- https://docs.mapbox.com/ios/maps/guides/
- https://docs.mapbox.com/android/maps/guides/
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-sdk/overview
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/ios-sdk/overview